[B-Greek] Adding accents

Timothy S. Nelson wayland at wayland.id.au
Tue Feb 16 17:57:46 EST 2010


On Sun, 24 Jan 2010, Ruth Mathys wrote:

> Am I the only person who finds it really counter-intuitive to type the
> accent first, and then the letter?  It's not how I write by hand (does
> anybody?), so I need a system that lets me do the letter first.  Or do just
> the letters, and go back and put the accents in later ;-)
>
> I find I can touchtype reasonably well with a mapping that lets me 'cheat'
> by equating theta with Q, omega with W, etc.  I know it's not how a modern
> Greek keyboard is laid out (at least not according to the 'polytonic Greek'
> keyboard mapping on my Mac), but it works for me and I'm not too proud to
> use it.

 	This problem is specific to your operating system and keyboard layout. 
I know how to solve this problem on my computer (although I haven't gotten 
around to it yet), but since you're using a Mac, and I'm using Linux, what I 
know would most likely not transfer.

 	The setup you're using is what is called a "dead keys" setup; you type 
the accent first, and nothing happens (this is the dead key).  Then you press 
the other key, and both symbols appear at once.

 	The setup that would work would be a pure Unicode setup; first you 
would press eg. the alpha key, which would display an alpha immediately, then 
you would press the accent key, which would put an accent on the previous 
character.

 	As to how to actually do that on a Mac, I'm afraid I don't have an 
answer.  But maybe I've helped you at least move in the right direction by 
giving you some idea of what questions to ask, and what people might be 
talking about.  Note that "pure unicode" is not a previously defined technical 
term; it simply describes what I see as being the major factor in this 
solution, so other people might say "pure unicode", and be referring to 
something else.

 	Anyway, I hope something here helps you in some way.

 	:)


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| Name: Tim Nelson                 | Because the Creator is,        |
| E-mail: wayland at wayland.id.au    | I am                           |
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